Lucy Meets Bob Hope
Previous episode: Return Home from Europe Next episode: Lucy Meets Orson Welles http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s29/ABMfisher/HotBirdMustard.jpg http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s29/ABMfisher/NobodyLovesHope.jpg Plot Not knowing Ricky already has booked Bob Hope for the grand opening of Club Babalu, Lucy tries to get the star to appear, dressing like a hot dog vendor and a baseball player in the process. At the end, Lucy, Ricky, and Bob Hope all sing "Nobody Likes the Ump." Trivia *Season 6, unfortunately, brings along a lot of unnecessary changes to the show that drastically change the show's dynamic, and this is largely due to the loss of genius Jess Oppenheimer. The biggest change is that Little Ricky is suddenly five years old and talks, now being played by actor Keith Thibodeaux. Very few of Thibodeaux's lines can be understood, and Lucy or Desi often have to repeat what he said, so the audience can understand the dialogue. Little Ricky was never meant to be a talking character! He was meant to stay in the background and given to Mrs. Trumbull so the crazy antics of the Ricardos and Mertzes could continue after his birth! *Keith Thibodeaux was given the stage name "Richard Keith," because the cast and crew could call him "Little Ricky" both on- and off-screen this way. Keith was chosen for the part of Litlte Ricky because of how similar he looked to Desi and Desi, Jr., as well as being dubbed the "tiniest drummer in the world." *Lucy and Bob Hope had worked together a lot in Lucy's early career, and they continued to work together as good friends after I Love Lucy. *In return for appearing on I Love Lucy, the cast did a guest spot on Bob Hope's Chevrolet special on NBC. In the skit, the set used is almost an exact duplicate of the Ricardos' real living room set. Lucy is hiding a seal in the closet for some reason, Bob Hope plays Ricky's role, Ricky/Desi plays Fred Mertz's role, and Bill Frawley plays a regular tenant in the building. It is odd and not all that funny. It is available on the "Lucy's Lost Episodes" VHS tape. One interesting fact about the skit is that Lucy had trouble getting the seal out of the closet a few times, so she had to lure it out with extra seal treats. *The lyrics to the song "Nobody Loves the Ump" were written just for this episode by Larry Orenstein, the same man who wrote the songs for episode #144. The music was written by Eliot Daniel. *Bob Hope uses cue cards for his lines, making this the first time cue cards have ever been used on the show. It's very shameful that, just because Lucy and Hope were close and Hope was a big star, Lucy didn't throw a fit about this and demand Hope to memorize his lines with the same painstaking precision that was expected of all other actors on the show. *Desi hurt his back badly while rehearsing this episode, so filming was postponed from a Thursday night to a Tuesday night. The reason Desi's back was injured was because Lucy came down hard on her husband while Desi and Bob Hope were swinging Lucy to get her baseball cleats unstuck from the tiles on the club floor. *Writer Bob Carroll said that Ricky was making around $20,000 a year by season 6, which was the reason he was able to buy the Tropicana. *On an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show ''that aired the day before the season 6 premiere, Desi announced that upcoming plans for season 6 included visiting New Orleans and having Jack Benny and Maurice Chevalier as guest stars. Apparently, New Orleans turned into Florida, which was a good thing; Florida was much more realistic of a destination for the Ricardos to go, and it tied in nicely to the visit to Cuba. But we all would have been better off with Benny and Chevalier. Maybe they would have taken Orson Welles's place! Maurice Chevalier would end up guest starring in one the episodes of ''The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. Quotes *Fred: (to Little Ricky) Who's "Joe 'Maggio"? You talk more like your father every day! *Fred: (to Ricky; about Ethel buying a new dress for club opening) If you hadn't bought a piece of the Tropicana, I wouldn't be buying a piece of Saks 5th Avenue! *Ethel: Gee, a baseball game is fun. I kinda wish I knew what it was all about. (yelling at field) KILL THE UMPIRE! Fred: Stop, Ethel, stop! Ethel: That's what YOU always say. Fred: The game hasn't even started yet! *Lucy: (trying to get in to see Bob Hope) I'm Ricky Ricardo's wife! Yankees Stadium guard: Well, that's keen. I'm Phoebe Krausfeld's husband, and it's still no dice! *Bob Hope: (to Lucy) What do you pitch? Bon-bons? *Ricky: What's the matter the chewing tobacco? Lucy: (hiding disgust) Not my brand! *Hope: (mimicking Lucy's deep ball player voice) Well, back to the ol' ball game! *Hope: I'm sorry I hit you on the back and made you swallow your tobacco. Lucy: Well, that's alright. You got a lump on the head, and I got a lump in my stomach! *Lucy: (singing) If I call off the game, I"d be out of a job... (struggling to find right note) Job? Job? Job? Hope: You've got a lifetime job lookin' for that note! *Lucy: Well, come on, fellas. Give me a couple of yanks the floor! Hope: "Yanks"- do you have to say that word? *Bob Hope: (in response to Lucy kissing his cheek) Hey, I may never go back to NBC!﻿ * Ricky: And don't tell little Ricky ( About Bob Hope ) now that we have him to worry about